cubase/nuendo - windows 8 direct monitoring issue

[dustbro]

Doing some testing with my new rig and found an issue when using direct monitoring.
When my machine switches between input and playback (when a track is armed), I hear a loud snap/pop from my speakers.
When I arm a track, I hear a snap
when I hit PLAY, I hear a snap
when I punch in, I hear a snap
and when it hit STOP, I hear a snap
The position of the snap in my monitors changes every time. It's either hard left, hard right, or center.
When the pop occurs, I see it on the channel meter.

System is:
i7 intel
8gb ram
windows 8 64bit
Cubase 7 64bit (control room activated)
Motu pci424 - HD192 (buffer 2048)

This also seems to happen on Nuendo 5 and Cubase 6.5 on this system